A question for the smart people of DU on Creole

[Botany]

I know I could google this but I am sure there are many smart DUers that
can tell me about the history and the roots of Haitian Creole. It seems like
a really beautiful language that has some French in it.

thanx

[WeDidIt]

1. French and Spanish it seems ot me.

And there are Creole areas in Louisiana, too.

[Kutjara]

2. "Creole" is a blanket term, applied to any language...

...that grew out of two or more others. Haitian Creole is a combination of French, several African languages, Spanish and some of the language of the former indigenous people of Haiti. It's a pretty rich mix of influences.

[htuttle]

13. The term is generally only used when describing languages developed over the last 500 years, however

Many modern languages, such as English, could also have been described as creoles at various points in their development. Shortly after the Norman invasion of Britain, many inhabitants probably spoke something like a pidgin of Anglo-Saxon (and Danish) and French (IMHO).

[Kutjara]

20. Very true. I guess all languages grew out of others...

...and would qualify as "creole" under my definition. Most modern creoles are the result of European colonizing influences during the last 500 years.

[Odin2005]

24. I would argue that English was partially "creolized".

IMO the "creolizion" had more to do with Celtic natives (who vastly outnumbered the Anglo-Saxons) learning Old English and botching it's grammar. English grammar has many little odd features that it shares only with the Celtic languages. Meaningless "Do" ("Did you go to the store?", the German would say "Went you to the store?"), a single ending (-ing) for both verbal nouns and present participles, and the use of the Simple Present tense to indicate habitual action of active verbs.

This creolization is why English's noun case system is so reduced and it's plural is so regular.

[WeDidIt]

3. Just checked

It's superstrate is French with numerous African languages and Amerindian providing the substrate. some words are English and Spanish, too.

Louisiana Creole is derived from Haitian Creole.

[slampoet]

8. There is a theory among Louisiana Creoles that their language also comes from another Island too.

But that during slave times the people were traded around so much by pirates and others that the name of that island has been forgotten.

It's kind of a cool mystery.

[HipChick]

4. There are many islands in the carribean that have a french patois besides Haiti

but English is spoken by many also..

[slampoet]

5. Creole means "Mixture" and there are many different kinds of it.

Haitian Creole is a mix of the French, African and the languages of every other person who visited the island.

There is Louisiana Creole which is similar to the Haitian but also to Cajun French which also has some of the Canadian dialect in it.

My landlord's family speaks Cape Verdean Creole, spoken on the islands of Cape Verde and it is a mixture of mostly Portuguese. They tell me that the people from the Azores also speak a Portugese Creole that is separate from theirs though I haven't seen a citation of it online.

Here is a list of the Creole languages that i found in Wikki, I am sure it is nowhere near complete.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole

* Haitian Creole language, French-based, an official language of Haiti
* Mauritian Creole, French-based, spoken in Mauritius
* Louisiana Creole French, spoken in Louisiana
* Belizean Kriol language, spoken in Belize
* Cape Verdean Creole, spoken on the islands of Cape Verde
* Krio Dayak language, spoken by Krio Dayak people in West Kalimantan, Indonesia
* Liberian Kreyol language, spoken in Liberia
* Seychellois Creole, French-based, spoken in the Seychelles
* Guinea-Bissau Creole, spoken in Guinea-Bissau
* Negerhollands, a Dutch-based creole, once spoken in the U.S. Virgin Islands
* Bislama, an English-based creole, spoken in Vanuatu
* Llanito, a Spanish- and English-based creole, spoken in Gibraltar
* Bajan or Barbadian Creole, English-based, spoken in Barbados
* Antillean Creole or Créole Martiniquais, French-based, spoken in the Lesser Antilles
* Tok Pisin, an official language of Papua New Guinea.
* Torres Strait Creole or Brokan, spoken in Far-North-East Australia, Torres Strait, and South-West Papua.

[arcadian]

6. The Maroons in Haiti are really interesting

different than Creole, they were escaped slaves that formed communities in the interior.

[FrenchieCat]

7. It's mainly French. I speak French, and I can understand those who speak Creole.....

We actually call it Creole patois....and they also speak it in St. Lucia, the Antilles Island; Quataloupe and Martinique and in many other West Indie Islands.

[HipChick]

9. I speak french but when patois when spoken by the locals is usually very fast

but I can understand the gist of what they are saying to me..

[FrenchieCat]

11. I have a lot of relatives who live in Martinique.......

So that may be why I understand it as well as I do....
But I don't attempt to speak it...
since most can speak French quite well.

To me, it just sounds like French with a regional accent.

[HipChick]

12. I spent a lot of time in st lucia

Understand it but won't attempt to speak it. Never had problem either.I do notice that not as many of the younger older generation speak it..A lot of the cable is direct US programming, with a few channels from South America..lot s of US influence..

[FrenchieCat]

14. I've been to St Lucia once. Beautiful place.....

Losta poverty though...as in many of the Islands.

My biracial cousins who ended up staying in France were basically assimilated
into the Martinique/Guadeloupe community in the banlieues of Paris.

[HipChick]

15. Lots of disparity between the haves and have-nots..

you go from mansions and villas to corrugated tin homes..beautiful island..but lots of foreign development going on..spoiling the natural beauty of the place..

[FrenchieCat]

17. Yep. Noticed that while swimming in the water, beautiful big homes

up in the hilly parts.

My brother lives in that kind of a set up in Bangkok for the last 5 years,
and before that in Jarkata. Don't know how he can do it; cause the contrast
in the classes is really breathtaking.

[HipChick]

19. Lots of European Nationals..British ex-pats come to retire there..

Many West Indians emigrated to UK and then come back to the Islands when they are retired,and live on their pensions..that's going to be my game plan...might have to step it depending on 2012..lol!

[FrenchieCat]

21. Yep.....in the Antilles Islands too!

Plus those who are natives of both Europe and the Islands
normally get long vacation,
and they come back to the Island to have their blast,
and they are usually seen as the fortunate ones by the natives,
and then they head back to the colder climate to make more money
for that one day of retirement.

I never worked in France, so no pension for me.
My Mom gets hers though....while living here in the states.

[Odin2005]

23. No, technically it's a seperate language based off of French.

Calling it a mere dialect of French is typical of prejudice against creoles, which are full languages in their own right.

[FrenchieCat]

25. You are correct.....

Although Haitians are called Haitians and not "Creoles",
but they do speak Creole, and it is an official language.

[malaise]

10. It's a mixture of African and French

It is spoken in Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, St Lucia, Dominica and to a lesser extent in Trinidad and Tobago and Grenada. Interestingly if you translated all the creole languages in the Caribbean they resemble each other more grammatically than either French, English, Dutch or Spanish - i.e Jamaican creole. So the reality is that for all the attempts by our colonizers, we maintain a whole lot of our African roots through language.

Some of our best linguists, people like Maureen Warner Lewis, have traced many words that we use right back to different parts of West Africa.

[Matariki]

16. Haitian Kreyol

is a mix of French and numerous dialects of West Africa. The word are largely French but spelled phonetically and the language structure is largely West African.

Keep in mind that the Africans brought to Hispaniola were from many different nations and spoke different languages.

Si travay te bon bagay, moun rich la pran-l lontan
(If work were a good thing the rich would have taken it a long time ago.)

[JaneQPublic]

18. A Creole language derives from a cobbling together of multiple languages...

...and that can be any languages, not necessarily French, etc.

When French slaveholders brought slaves to Haiti from many different African tribes, in order to communicate they developed a shared PIDGIN language, which is a rudimentary languages with a limited vocabulary drawn from the speakers' first languages. While a pidgin language is always a second language to the speakers, when that same language is spoken by the next generation as their first language, that pidgin language is said to have been CREOLIZED and is then known as a CREOLE language.

Pidgin languages often spring up in places where speakers of different languages intermingle, say for trade.

What a coincidence this came up, because I just finished reviewing the section on Creole and Pidgin languages in my old grad school linguistics text.

[Odin2005]

22. Hatian Creole, is derived from "broken French" that developed into a full language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Creole_language

Creoles are very cool and Haitian Creole is the coolest. Basically the first slaves communicated with each other with what is called a Pidgin, a make-shift mix of French and West African languages. The children of those first slaves, because kids learn language instinctively, turned this pidgin into a true language.

[ddeclue]

26. It is derived mostly from 18th Century French but has a lot of differences

from modern French especially in spelling.

[Botany]

27. And this why I love DU thanx all!

n/t